What Poetry Has Taught Me

If you asked me a few months ago about the relationship between me and poetry, I would have said something along the lines of, “Pft please, poetry is for sissies.” And now? Well now I’m proud to call myself one of these said sissies. Ya know what? I love it. Poetry exposes so much about us, that we probably couldn’t express, except through the structure of stanzas. A dear friend of mine told me about the power of poetry, and how healing it is. Poetry is spiritual. You can write about anything, tap into any emotions, and just write. That’s why I love it.

To explain more of what poetry has taught me, I’m actually going to share a poem. I wrote this for an English class–the topic was our English language and the changes its taken. I decided on a more personal transformation of language. Hope you enjoy. (I’ll try and include more of my poetry in later posts, I have pages and pages of poems, so hopefully I can integrate them more!)

I used to speak like the average peer who surrounds me.
Full of shortcuts, errors, and overused smileys.
I used to speak with no motivation,
No strength, or gusto.
I used to speak as if I had no voice,
Empty and unable to produce any noise.

But I woke up one day,
I opened my eyes.
I saw the world,
It was to my own surprise.

I saw the beauty,
The love,
The life saver.
Which I found through only a pen
and some paper.

The more I spent sleepless night with an open mind,
The more I came to appreciate
The passion I had inside.

Language, which used to a subject to cause retort,
Became an art, a love, a new found support.
Language, which used to be shoved aside, forgotten,
Became my hope,
My refuge,
The key to make my heart soften.

I thought with sophistication.
I wrote with determination.
My daily speech was conceived with genuine anticipation.

I set myself out from the crowd.
So I could be heard, strong and loud.
All I kept inside, I could express into words,
As if I knew the answer all along,
but I was just reading backwards.

What once was involuntary
and even lethargic,
Transformed into structures
and I was the artist.
The privilege to speak is one we take for granted,
The privilege to be heard is one we cannot even fathom.

But I understand now why language is so overlooked.
It’s because of people who act like my former self.
Who just shoved away the books.
Who crumpled up the paper.
Let their thoughts vanish like vapor.

When will we realize that the moment
We shut off our minds,
From their everlasting finds,
we lose part of our lives,
we lose our communicative ties?

English is more than words which form sentences.
English is more than grammar and symbolic emphasis.
English is our voice,
The one we choose to define ourselves by.

The day I chose to open and see,
Was the day I became
A bigger and better me.